With the season opener just five days away, Tennessee will
kick off its 2019 schedule with a 3-game out of conference slate before the
all-important game against Florida starts the SEC gauntlet. The initial stretch features two games
against relatively lower-end competition (Georgia State and Chattanooga)
sandwiched around what should be a very tough game against BYU. So while the Vols will likely ease into the
season on Saturday, they must be immediately prepared for the game against the
Cougars and then of course be tuned up for the rest of the season. Given the way the schedule breaks down,
therefore, Tennessee must optimize those 120 minutes in Weeks 1 and 3. When Jeremy Pruitt waxed both poetically and
cryptically about the pros and cons of playing younger (and potentially more
talented) players vs. more experienced veterans, to a certain degree this is
what he was talking about. As you look
over a 12-game schedule, how do you get your main contributors tuned up while also
keeping them as fresh as possible, get your bench players snaps so they’re
ready when and if needed, and also give yourself the best chance of winning each
and every game? That’s the conundrum
facing every coach in America, but particularly when it comes to a roster with lot
of players
from the former
regime as well as newer players to work in, this opening schedule gives
Tennessee a chance to do all of those things as much as possible.
Below is a look, by position, at players at each position
who Coach Pruitt and his staff need to play as much as possible in especially
the games against GSU and Chattanooga and who in turn need to take as much
advantage as possible of the opportunity:
QB
JT Shrout
Brian Maurer
The story here is obvious.
Neither of the Vols backup Quarterbacks have ever taken a college snap,
and regardless of the optimism around the 2019 Offensive Line there is still a
greater-than-zero chance that one of them is needed for at least a handful of
snaps in a meaningful game this season.
Therefore, it’s imperative that Tennessee use these two games to not
only determine which of Shrout or Maurer are next in line behind Jarrett
Guarantano but also give both of them as many real (i.e., not simply 100%
garbage time handoffs) opportunities to learn and grow. That will not only clarify the depth chart
but also make Tennessee coaches at least slightly less nervous if and when one
of them has to actually play.
Tennessee has a commitment from 2020 stud QB Harrison Bailey
and also just had former 4-star and University of Maryland QB Kasim Hill
transfer in. While Hill’s future
scholarship status is unknown, his presence on the roster for 2020 along with
Bailey’s commitment will allow Tennessee coaches to rest a little easier about
the Quarterback position in 2020 regardless of whether Guarantano comes back
for his 5th season in Knoxville or not.
RB
Eric Gray
There’s only one non-veteran in the RB corps, and Gray is
someone Vol coaches and fans are very excited to see. He brings an element of play-making that’s
not only unique to this team but also potentially gives Offensive Coordinator
Jim Chaney a ton of flexibility with how he can utilize multiple formations and
personnel sets, especially in combination with fellow RB Ty Chandler. The guess here is that we don’t see a lot of
that dynamism against GSU since the Vols should be able to run up the score
without showing BYU anything to work on for the following week. But getting Gray his first college carries
will still be worthwhile since it will eliminate any jitters when he does get
carries that matter.
With the move of Jeremy Banks from RB to LB, Tennessee will
enter the 2019 season with only four RBs on the depth chart, one of which
(Carlin Fils-Aime) is a senior and one of which (Chandler) is at least a
potential NFL early entrant. The Vols do
have one RB commitment in the 2020 class in Tee Hodge, a big and talented
player from Maryville. Ideally there would
be a second, very talented back in this class.
However right now there is a dearth of legitimate options and the best one,
Ty Jordan, appears to be a heavy Texas lean due to his family’s medical
situation. Certainly the staff will be
on the lookout both for breakout senior season performers and also for any
shaky commitments to other schools. But
in the interim, Gray looking like a future star would at least make it a
legitimate discussion as to whether that second RB is in fact a need rather
than a “nice to have.”
TE
Andrew Craig
Jacob Warren
Princeton Fant
Jackson Lowe
Sean Brown
Although the Tennessee TE room has more bodies than it has
in a long time, outside of expected star Dominick Wood-Anderson and oft-injured
but skilled Austin Pope, there are zero career catches and barely a handful of
snaps among the rest. Craig is a walkon
who’s impressed the staff with his physicality and potential to also play some
H-Back, while Fant has bounced around between a couple of positions but has lot
of athleticism and good size.
Warren/Lowe/Brown are Pruitt signees with great size – especially as a
group now that Warren is up to the mid-240s after signing closer to 210 pounds
– with tons of promise. Ideally at least
one of them break through and force Chaney and TE Coach Brian Niedermeyer to
give them more and more snaps as the season goes on, and these two games are
the best opportunity for them to earn that in a lower-risk environment.
Right now the Vols do not have a commitment from a TE in the
2020 recruiting class, and realistically at this point only have one real
target in 5-star Darnell Washington. The
Vols are very much in that recruitment and will receive an official visit from
him during the season. However, the
other two top teams are Alabama and Georgia, two recruiting juggernauts who
have already hosted Washington a time or two more than Tennessee has. Complicating that recruitment is the notion
that Washington and 5-star Arik Gilbert (more on him below) are unlikely to
sign with the same team, and Tennessee/Alabama/Georgia make up Gilbert’s top 3
as well. Can Tennessee convince Gilbert
and Washington that Gilbert is truly a WR (a pitch that was Tennessee’s
originally and is likely being stolen by the other competitors) and sign them
both? Can they beat out those two
schools for either one of these studs anyway?
That all remains to be seen. What
is known, however, is that as good as Washington is – and he looks like an NFL
TE right now before playing a down of his senior season in high school – if a
handful of those freshmen can show they are potentially top-end SEC TEs than
signing one in this class becomes more of a luxury than a necessity. And with the potential complications with
Gilbert noted above, as well as potential issues with numbers in this class for
the Vols, that would be big.
WR
Jordan Murphy/Jacquez Jones
Cedric Tillman/Ramel Keyton
Tennessee’s WR rotation is as firmly set as any position on
the team, with three Seniors and Junior who’ve all played a lot of quality
football likely to get the bulk of the snaps and targets throughout the
season. However, beyond just the
ever-present chance of injury over the course of the season, no team can ever
have too many offensive playmakers, so were at least 1-2 of the group above to
step up and become a legitimate threat for Guarantano that would broaden the
options that Guarantano and Chaney have at their disposal. Murphy has of course
showed more in his career to-date than the others, but so far he’s left
everyone thinking there’s a lot more there.
Volquest.com has reported that
there have been some rumblings of Jones flashing some this preseason. Same for Keyton. Tillman is a big bodied WR who is still
fairly raw but who has physical gifts and plenty of time to develop them. In an ideal world the Vols stamp the blowouts
over GSU and Chattanooga early enough to get the veterans off the field and
these guys on early, allowing the coaches to see if any of them can truly help
this season.
The underlying storyline at the position is that with the
aforementioned veterans departing after this season (pending Junior Josh
Palmer’s season and subsequent NFL early entry decision) there is going to be a
ton of question marks at the position in 2020; therefore, a handful of these
guys at the very least showing the
potential to be legit SEC players next
season would not just be big for themselves individually but would also
clarify things for the Tennessee coaching staff in terms of numbers for the
2020 recruiting class. Right now the
Vols have commitments from one pure WR in Jalin Hyatt and then two players in
Darion Williamson and Jimmy Calloway who could project at WR but also have some
positional flexibility depending on team need and (especially for Williamson)
how their respective bodies change over the next few years. As noted above, Arik Gilbert is either target
1A or 1B at the position along with fellow 5-star Rakim Jarrett. Jarrett is ostensibly an LSU commitment but
the Vols were in great shape even before his teammate Mordecai McDaniel
commitment to Tennessee last week and then Hill – a former St. Johns College HS
player himself – enrolled at Tennessee.
The Vols also continue to recruit Alabama commitment Thaiu Jones-Bell,
but the necessity for yet another WR
signee will be illuminated over the course of the season and will depend on the
performance of these players as well as Palmer’s NFL decision.
OL/DL
The storylines from this angle are virtually the same for
both the Offensive and Defensive Lines, the positions with the most question
marks going into the season and therefore the positions that will ultimately
determine the ceiling and the floor for this team. While the OL has more experience than the DL,
both have tons of youth projected to play major roles while the rotations
aren’t set at either position as well.
Ideally the Volunteer DL is dominant against both GSU and Chattanooga,
getting all 11 scholarship players tons of work to prepare for the rest of the
season, and more than holds its own against a BYU OL that is experienced and
talented and many will see as a competitive advantage for the Cougars going
into the game.
It seems certain that at this point the best case for the OL
in particular is:
GSU: Tennessee
plays up to 10 players and gets great pass protection and push in the run game
throughout
BYU: Tennessee has
used the GSU game to narrow down the rotation to closer to 7-8 with a starting
5 they preferably ride the entire game with success
Chattanooga:
Depending on the success in the BYU game, Tennessee either continues to ride
with the 5 from the BYU game and then also gets the remaining 5 tons more work
OR has tweaked the starting 5 from the BYU yet still works in the other 5 to
gain more experience
The entire strategy should be aimed at heading to
Gainesville with a cohesive starting 5 that’s seen success together at least in
the Chattanooga game along with a deep bench that’s gotten tons of snaps this
season already
ILB
Henry To’oto’to
Shannon Reid
JJ Peterson
Jeremy Banks
Aaron Beasley
Solon Page
To’oto’to is going to start and looks like a Freshman phenom
who’s going to be a star at Tennessee.
Getting any Freshman reps in games like these is always important, but
when you’re truly counting on one it’s imperative. Reid is the most experienced of this group,
but these games will give him a chance to showcase the newly added bulk and
simply that he’s taken a real step towards being a true contributor in the ILB
rotation. Given Daniel Bituli’s injury
situation – and that he’s a player Tennessee can ill afford to be absent during
SEC play – Reid could very well start the opener.
The remaining four have seen a collective zero ILB snaps
during their respective careers.
Peterson is a former 5-star recruit who spent last season trying to
catch up from showing up late and out of shape.
He’s battled back from injuries early in fall camp and absolutely could
use the reps to get truly acclimated to major college football and for the
coaches to see if he’s really got 5 (or even 4)-star potential. Banks moved (back) to LB last week – Vol fans
know the deal here: very athletic and ultra-aggressive, Banks practiced some a
LB late last season and impressed, but because of depth issues at RB was moved
back. Gray has seemingly passed him in
the pecking order so it makes sense to give him another shot here, especially
with the relatively light ILB depth.
Beasley is a promising looking freshman who many (including in this
space) had pegged as a future LB despite starting out at S. He’s already been moved and these games are a
great chance for him to get his feet wet.
Page has been in the program for a few years and realistically probably just
doesn’t have the size or speed to play at this level. But getting kids like this some run,
especially in blowouts, can never hurt.
OLB
Kivon Bennett
Quarvaris Crouch
Roman Harrison
Bennett needs to show that his slimmed down frame has
brought with it new explosiveness – these games are a chance for him to earn
real snaps along with Deandre Johnson opposite Darrell Taylor and try to hold
off Crouch and Harrison, two freshmen who are likely to provide at least
rotational snaps at the position as they both bring a level of speed and
athleticism missing on the roster.
Florida’s OL held up reasonably well against Miami’s pass rush this past
Saturday night, but they are still inexperienced and a relative weakness for
the Gators and QB Felipe Franks is abysmal when under pressure. Therefore, figuring out how to maximize the
pass rush while minimizing the number of blitzes will be key for Tennessee In
that game, which is why it is essential that the Vols staff uses these two
games to get their young pass-rushers ready.
DB
Treveon Flowers/Shawn Shamburger
Kenneth George/Cheyenne Labruzza/Brandon Davis
Warren Burrell/Tyus Fields/Jerrod Means/Kenny Solomon
The news over the weekend about Bryce Thompson, and the
uncertainty that brings to Tennessee’s secondary while his situation is sorted
out, makes this particular section all the more meaningful. We’ll operate under the assumption that
Thompson misses at least the GSU game, in which case it’s likely that Freshman
Warren Burrell will start alongside Sophomore Alontae Taylor at Cornerback
while Junior Shawn Shamburger, a relatively little-used but talented player,
continues to project as the starting Nickelback. It would also mean that all of the other
players above, from the returning players getting one of their first respective
starts like Shamburger and Flowers; returning players who have played very
little such as George, Labruzza, and Davis; and Burrell’s fellow Freshmen
Fields, Means, and Solomon, will all move up a slot in the rotation against GSU
and Chattanooga. The starters will need
to show that they’re capable of being high level SEC players, while the less
experienced returners and the freshmen sans Burrell will have an opportunity to
show that they can help this season and then be meaningful contributors and
possibly starters down the road in their careers. A guy like Means,
who moved over from WR this fall and has shown promise to go with his physical
gifts, or a guy like Solomon who could be used on Kick Returns (especially in
Thompson’s absence, and especially in low-risk situations), have unique opportunities
to show they belong.
Ultimately the best thing that can come from these games is
for Tennessee to come out of them with tons of confidence, newly experienced
players, and a clean injury sheet. The
latter is arguably the most important but is also the thing most out of anyone’s
control. So the staff must focus on the
first two and maximize the opportunities so that they give the team the best
chance to hit its ceiling.
